Topstep account sizes & per-size rules

The full Topstep size ladder

Prop pricing scales sub-linearly with account size — roughly the square root of the size ratio — so the biggest account is almost never the best value per dollar of usable buffer. Each line below shows the modelled list price, the first-phase profit target and the loss buffer expressed as a percentage of the account.

Read the buffer column first. On a end-of-day trailing drawdown, the dollar buffer is the only number that limits your position size; the account label is marketing. A trader risking 1% per trade on the 150k account is taking the same dollar risk as one risking 6× that percentage on the smallest.

• 25k — $35 ($14 with the public code), 6% target = $1.5k, 4% buffer = $1k of loss room
• 50k — $50 ($20 with the public code), 6% target = $3k, 4% buffer = $2k of loss room
• 100k — $70 ($28 with the public code), 6% target = $6k, 4% buffer = $4k of loss room
• 150k — $85 ($34 with the public code), 6% target = $9k, 4% buffer = $6k of loss room

Which Topstep size is actually the best value

Cost per dollar of loss buffer is the honest comparison. 25k costs 0.035 per dollar of buffer; 50k costs 0.025 per dollar of buffer; 100k costs 0.018 per dollar of buffer; 150k costs 0.014 per dollar of buffer. The cheapest ratio is where the firm is subsidising you the most, and it is usually a mid tier rather than the flagship.

The second filter is your own stop distance. Work out the worst-case dollar loss of a normal trade at your usual size, multiply by five consecutive losers, and buy the smallest account whose buffer absorbs that without breaching. Buying above that point is paying for headroom you will never trade into; buying below it guarantees a reset fee.

What the 25k and 50k tiers mean in practice

The small tiers are where most traders start and where most resets happen, because the dollar buffer is small enough that a single mis-sized position ends the account. On a futures account, one ES contract moves roughly $50 per point — on a 25k account with a few thousand dollars of buffer, a 20-point adverse move on two contracts is most of your room. Micros exist precisely for this tier.

The larger tiers change the psychology more than the maths. Same rules, same percentage targets, bigger dollar swings — which is why traders who pass consistently on a small account often breach the first week on a large one. Scale the account only after you have taken at least two payouts at the size below.

• End-of-day trailing drawdown: The drawdown line moves up with your closed balance at the end of each session, not tick by tick during the day. In practice this is the single most trader-friendly mechanic in futures: an intraday spike into profit that you give back does not permanently raise your stop-out level.
• Daily loss limit: A hard per-day loss ceiling scaled to account size. It is enforced on the platform and will flatten positions — treat it as your real risk budget, not the maximum drawdown.
• Consistency target on funded accounts: Topstep applies a consistency expectation before the first withdrawal so that no single day accounts for an outsized share of profit. Plan for several moderate winning days rather than one heroic session.

Rules that stay the same at every size

Firms rarely vary the rulebook by account size — they vary the dollar limits. On Topstep the constants are the end-of-day trailing drawdown, the 90% profit split, the weekly payout window and the consistency position (no single day > 50% of total profit).

• News trading: allowed — No news blackout. Futures firms police risk with position limits instead, and Topstep's are published per contract.
• EAs: conditionally allowed — Semi-automated and ATM strategies are fine. Fully unattended algos are not permitted — you must be at the desk.
• Weekend holding: not permitted — Flat before the weekend close; positions are auto-liquidated.
• Time limit: none — The Trading Combine has no deadline; you pay monthly until you pass.

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